I've been playing these past few days with my August 2015 Paper Pumpkin kit: Chalk It Up To Love.

And I went a little crazy…

I made a decorative box of note cards (alternate layouts from the ones that are shown in the kit images above), 3 more alternate note cards, a 12×12 traditional scrapbook layout, another 12×12 page, a Project Life page, a wreath, a bunch of back-to-school items, a couple mini boxes, a string of pretty lights, and prepared my exclusive alternate projects for my personal subscribers. Those 12 exclusives got sent out a couple days ago to those that ordered that kit from me. This graphic shows peeks of just 9 of them…

Back in July, when I saw this kit at the Stampin' Up! Convention, I knew it would be one of my favorites. So I increased my subscription and ordered 7 boxes!! This is my son, Nicholas hauling them all in. The mailman, Joe couldn't fit them in our mailbox and had to deliver them to our door. LOL! 

I didn't use ALL 7 boxes to make all my alternate projects (only 3), but I knew they would make great gifts. So I'm saving the 4 I didn't use for now.

I'm still working on editing my August Paper Pumpkin video (hoping to have it on YouTube and up on my blog here tomorrow), but I just want to warn you… I wasn't able to record much this month. The kids are not in school yet, so the quiet time was very hard to find. I had a friend lined up to take them one day, too. But her son got ill. So instead of putting all my August kit projects into videos, I recorded what I could and just took photos of the rest.

One of the projects that didn't make the video is this string of decorative lights. I purchased this strand of lights in the "bridal" area of my local JoAnn's Store. And then I embellished every other bulb with a flower or with fringes.

The embellishments on these lights were VERY easy to make. And wouldn't this decoration be great for a girl's birthday party, a baby shower, a wedding, etc…?!

I basically had three separate embellishments: a big flower combo, a smaller flower combo, and a circle of fringes.

For the flower combos, I used the die cut flowers from the kit (the large pink ones), 3 flower punches, card stock in the kit, and the 1/4" Handheld Circle punch. (See the supply list at the bottom of this post to find these items in my online store.)

I punched the extra pink flowers from the flower die-cut sheet in the kit and the black flowers from the tags in the kit.

Hint: punch the center 1/4" circle first, then punch the flower. This way your 1/4" circle ends up smack-dab in the center.

For the fringe décor, cut your black fringe strips from the kit into small sections. I separated mine into lengths of about 1-1/2" inches which gave me about 7 "fringes" in each section.

Then use the extra pink card stock from the flower die-cut sheets to cut out 1" x 1-1/2" strips.

Use your Paper Snips (scissors) to trim into your pink strips OR the Fringe Scissors shown below (if you have it) to make this step go even quicker. Then use a bone folder to curl the fringe and petals of the flowers. Add them to your light strand by wrapping them around the lights using a strong adhesive. The Fast Fuse worked for me. I also used the Fast Fuse on the underside of the flowers towards the center to attach the flowers to the lights. If these lights were outside, I would consider a stronger adhesive though. But the Fast Fuse should be fine for an indoor setting, and this way I can change out my embellishments for another theme in the future.

On this strand of 50 lights, I used 6 large flowers, 6 small flowers, and 12 circles of fringes (24 embellishments). I spaced them out like so…

• large flower
• regular light
• fringe
• regular light
• small flower
• regular light
• fringe
• regular light
• large flower
• regular light
• fringe
• regular light
• small flower
• regular light
• fringe
• regular light,…

I also had to share a couple miniature August Paper Pumpkin kit boxes that Nora Marin, a talented demonstrator on my team shared with me. Aren't they adorable?!

P.S. Just in case you are not a subscriber to Paper Pumpkin yet…Your first two kits are 50% off when you start your NEW subscription by September 10th and use the promo code: HALFOFF.

The Fine Print:

• For new subscribers only (new email addresses).
• Available for month-to-month subscriptions, not prepaid subscriptions.
• Discount applied to one kit per month for the first two months of a new subscription. After the first two months, the price for each month's kit will go to the regular price: $19.95.
• You need to visit PaperPumpkin.com to join.
• Enter the Promo Code, HALFOFF when you sign up.
• New subscribers must join by Thursday, September 10, 2015; 11:50 PM (MT).

Click here to learn more about Paper Pumpkin.
Click here to sign up for a subscription.

Additional supplies used (besides the contents of the August 2015 Paper Pumpkin kit) to make this string of lights project…

• String of "Bridal" lights (www.joann.com)

Stampin' Trimmer	Fun Flower Punch	Pansy Punch	Petite Petals Punch	1/4" Circle Handheld Punch
Fringe Scissors	Bone Folder	Fuse Fast Adhesive